Sixth Innovation Stories line-up will explore work from brands such as Virgin, Santander & Sky
As the marketing industry continues to grapple with how best to incorporate technology, Innovation Social plans to help the industry by voicing a number of first-hand success stories from some of Britain's biggest brands, curated by Utopia's Nadya Powell, Lizzie Shupak, co-founder of Curve, VCCP’s Will Harvey and Karmarama's Lawrence Weber.
Innovation Stories
Speaking at this year's Innovation Stories event in April will be Lee McGuffie, digital and content strategy director at Virgin; Adam Hopkinson, chief operating officer and co-founder at media agency Truth; Lea Simpson, founding partner at Brink; Tamara Giltsoff, head of innovation for The Department for International Development at Ashridge Business School and Shilen Patel, co-founder of Independents United.
Also on the bill will be Sol Rogers, chief executive and founder of Rewind and Luciana Carvalho Se, head of partnerships at Rewind, with; Simon Windsor, co-founder and joint managing director at Hammerhead, talking about volumetric video capture, Neil Graham, executive producer at Sky VR on the company's latest VR work, Rowland Manthorpe, associate editor of Wired magazine who will explore the future of XR and Carrie Wootten, Immerse UK at Knowledge Transfer Network, on how government funding is supporting the devel0pment of immersive technologies.
On the topic of innovation within culture, Valeria Corna, innovation director, for DigitasLBi and Justin Hannemann, head of new product and service design (customer and innovation) for Santander will discuss their recent collaboration while Catalina Cernica, head of Leo Innovation Lab UK, Thomas Van Every, executive director of 'hive' innovation unit ViiV Healthcare, Jassim Ahmad, former global head of innovation at Thomson Reuters and Georgie Mack, managing partner at Made by Many and co-founder of Minds@work will discuss why innovation culture is vital to forward looking business.
The event, the sixth time it has been held, will aim to help decision makers in marketing accept and embrace the changes they experience in their professions and future-proof themselves and their brand strategies.
Nadya Powell, co-founder of Innovation Social, explained: “Since Innovation Social began five years ago we’ve seen innovation departments close in agencies, mature and grow in client organisations and applauded the growth of innovation consultancies, accelerators and incubators. Innovation has reached a second phase of maturity and Innovation Social is celebrating this elite breed with its sixth Innovation Stories. Tune in or become irrelevant.”
Echoing these sentiments, Lawrence Weber, another co-founder of the event, added: "Most standalone Innovation roles have been merged into planning and the people that do them have changed roles, started their own consultancies or joined very different types of businesses.
"Innovation Stories has changed with the industry and many more of our speakers come from the clients or consultancy world, rather than agencies. We’re excited that the likes of The Void, Wired, Sky, Santander, Virgin and Contagious are joining us to share their stories, along with our partner for the evening VRLO- who’ll bring with them the best Immersive Tech demos."
The event, which takes place on Wednesday 25 April from 1pm at Crypt on the Green in Clerkenwell Close, will be held in support with The Drum’s Future of Marketing conference, scheduled to take place in October.
More information on Innovation Stories 2018, alongside ticket prices, can be found through the dedicated Eventbrite page.